Electronic democracy (1998)

Pamphlet Review from the October 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Autonarchy, the Ultimate Democracy. By Akiva Orr. Pamphlet can be downloaded from: http://www/autonarchy.org.il

Autonarchy, a word coined by Orr himself, means literally “self-rule” which in his view can be achieved by instituting what he calls “Magnetic Card Direct Democracy”. Every citizen would have a magnetic card and their own PIN number and all telephones, public as well as private, would be equipped with a device to read these cards. This would enable people to register their votes, which could be counted almost instanteously, on any policy issue put before them (Orr in fact argues that all policy decisions should be made in this way). Questions requiring a policy decision would be drawn up as a range of options by experts in the particular field concerned or proposed by a minimum number of citizens. A special TV channel would be devoted to discussing the pros and cons of the various proposals for policy decision which citizens could look at before deciding which way to vote.

Orr adds some other refinements but the basic idea is clear. Modern communications technology has opened up the possibility for mass participation in decision-making:

“The revolutionary changes in communications technology make it possible, for the first time in history, to sum up millions of decisions taken far apart into a single total in seconds and to display this continuously on millions of TV screens. Political decision-making by millions of people is now possible”.

This is undoubtedly true and some socialists have suggested that it could be used extensively in socialism. Certainly, socialism would be the best framework for such an “electronic democracy” and no doubt this will be incorporated into the democratic decision-making procedures which will be a feature of socialism. Whether people will want to go as far as Orr appears to and have “magnetic card direct democracy” as the only such procedure appears more doubtful as “indirect” elected delegate democracy also has its advantages. Not all decisions can be reduced to a simple “yes-or-no” question, nor can people spend all their time voting.

Orr puts forward his proposal as a move “beyond capitalism, socialism, anarchism”. While he understands the drawbacks of capitalism and anarchism well enough, he misunderstands socialism as “state ownership and rule by a socialist party”. This is not what we would recognise as socialism but is rather state capitalism.

Adam Buick